Stories indexed under: Astronomy

Neutron star’s echoes give astronomers a new measuring stickJune 23, 2015In late 2013, when the neutron star at the heart of one of our galaxy’s oddest supernovae gave off a massive burst of X-rays, the resulting echoes — created when the X-rays bounced off clouds of dust in interstellar space — yielded a surprising new measuring stick for astronomers.

Dark energy to be topic of Space Place eventMay 26, 2015"To Infinity and Beyond: The Accelerating Universe," a live broadcast from the World Science Festival about dark energy, an antigravitational force that confounds the conventional laws of physics, will be hosted on the evening of May 28 by UW-Madison's Space Place.

Wisconsin contributions helped Hubble Space Telescope soarApril 21, 2015It was “the flea on the tail of the dog.” Roughly 30 years ago, that was how University of Wisconsin-Madison astronomy Professor Robert C. Bless described the High Speed Photometer (HSP), a detector then under development at UW-Madison for the soon-to-be-launched Hubble Space Telescope.

Automation offers big solution to big data in astronomyMarch 24, 2015It’s almost a rite of passage in physics and astronomy. Scientists spend years scrounging up money to build a fantastic new instrument. Then, when the long-awaited device finally approaches completion, the panic begins: How will they handle the torrent of data?

Here comes HAWC: New observatory to seek out gamma raysMarch 20, 2015High on a sleeping Mexican volcano, a new particle astrophysics observatory is about to blink to life, commencing an all-sky search for very high-energy gamma rays - a search that could greatly expand the catalog of known gamma ray sources and chip away at the mystery of the cosmic rays that constantly bombard our planet.

Slideshow: Pieces of UW-Madison astronomy history off to the nation’s atticFeb. 12, 2015While cleaning out Sterling Hall cabinets that hadn’t been opened in decades, UW-Madison Space Place Director Jim Lattis and colleagues in the Astronomy Department struck historical gold: a collection of old photodiode and photomultiplier tubes dating to the earliest days of photoelectric astronomy. The university is donating 20 of the vintage photo detectors to the Smithsonian Institution for its permanent collection of astronomical instruments.

Letting off steam: Gas discharge terminates galaxy’s star formationDec. 3, 2014With the help of a radio telescope in the French Alps, an international team of astronomers, including two from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has observed a never-before-seen stage of galactic evolution. Writing in this week’s Nature, a group that includes UW-Madison astronomers Aleks Diamond-Stanic and Christy Tremonti, reports measurements of dense, cold hydrogen gas being blasted from a distant star-forming galaxy, the first direct observation of the “blow out” phase of a galaxy’s evolution.

UW team’s plants return to Earth after growing in spaceNov. 6, 2014Researchers at Simon Gilroy's lab in the Department of Botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison expect to greet a truck this afternoon that is carrying small containers holding more than 1,000 frozen plants that germinated and grew aboard the International Space Station.

New Milky Way portrait to be on Town Center media wallMarch 20, 2014The dramatic new infrared picture of the plane of our galaxy will be viewable for the next week on the large media wall in the Town Center of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery on the UW-Madison campus.

Dramatic new portrait helps define Milky Way’s shape, contentsMarch 20, 2014Using more than 2 million images collected by NASA’s orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope, a team of Wisconsin scientists has stitched together a dramatic 360-degree portrait of the Milky Way, providing new details of our galaxy’s structure and contents.

Fledgling supernova remnant reveals neutron star's secretsDec. 4, 2013With the help of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Australia Telescope Compact Array, an international team of astronomers has identified the glowing wreck of a star that exploded a mere 2,500 years ago — the blink of an eye in astronomical terms.

IceCube pushes neutrinos to the forefront of astronomyNov. 21, 2013The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a particle detector buried in the Antarctic ice, is a demonstration of the power of the human passion for discovery, where scientific ingenuity meets technological innovation.

IceCube feature film to premiere in Milwaukee planetarium showOct. 31, 2013The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is one of a kind. Built deep within the Antarctic ice, it is the world’s largest neutrino detector. Now, thanks to a collaboration between the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC) and the Milwaukee Public Museum, it boasts another unique aspect: its own planetarium show.

The sun also flips: 11-year solar cycle wimpy, but peakingOct. 16, 2013In a 3-meter diameter hollow aluminum sphere, Cary Forest, a University of Wisconsin-Madison physics professor, is stirring and heating plasmas to 500,000 degrees Fahrenheit to experimentally mimic the magnetic field-inducing cosmic dynamos at the heart of planets, stars and other celestial bodies.

UW brings outreach to Epic's 'Deep Space'Sept. 19, 2013Hosting a series of exhibits on Epic Systems campus in Verona for the health care software company’s massive annual users’ group meeting, UW-Madison researchers and outreach experts focused on “Deep Space,” the name of Epic’s new underground auditorium, as a common theme to demonstrate how campus research is making an impact in and out of this world.

Massive storm pulls water and ammonia ices from Saturn’s depthsSept. 3, 2013Now, thanks to near-infrared spectral measurements taken by NASA’s Cassini orbiter and analysis of near-infrared color signatures by researchers at UW-Madison, Saturn’s superstorm is helping scientists flesh out a picture of the composition of the planet’s atmosphere at depths typically obscured by a thick high-altitude haze.

International astrophysics reaches MilwaukeeApril 16, 2013Trips to the South Pole usually require a lot of specialized equipment, but Nils Irland's packing list for his November 2012 visit included some items unusual even by those standards: a specially designed video camera, extra batteries, and lots and lots of data storage.